Man brings upon himself a thousand calamities, as consequences of his
artifices and pride, and then, overlooking his own follies, gravely
investigates the origin of what he calls evil:--
He compromises every natural pleasure to acquire fame among transient
beings, who forget him nightly in sleep, and eternally in death; and
seeks to render his name celebrated among posterity, though it has no
identity with his person, and though posterity and himself can have no
contemporaneous feeling.
He deprives himself and all around him of every passing enjoyment, to
accumulate wealth that he may purchase other men’s labour, in the vain
hope of adding happiness to his own.
He omits to make effective laws to protect the poor against the
oppressions of the rich, and then wears out his existence under the fear
of becoming poor, and being the victim of his own neglect and injustice.
He arms himself with murderous weapons; and on the slightest instigation,
and for hire, practises murder as a science, follows this science as
a regular profession, and honours its chiefs above benefactors and
philosophers, in proportion to the quantity of blood they have shed, or
the mischiefs they have perpetrated.
He disguises the most worthless of the people in showy liveries, and
then excites them to murder men whom they never saw, by the fear of being
killed if they do not kill.
He revels in luxury and gluttony, and then complains of the diseases
which result from repletion.
He tries in all things to counteract or improve the provisions of nature,
and then afflicts himself at his disappointments.
He multiplies the chances against his own life and health by his numerous
artifices, and then wonders at their fatal results.
He shuts his eyes against the volume of truth as presented by Nature,
and, vainly considering that all was made for him, founds on this false
assumption various doubts in regard to the justice of eternal causation.
He interdicts the enjoyment of all other creatures, and regarding the
world as his property, in mere wantonness destroys myriads on whom have
been bestowed beauties and perfections.
He forgets that to live and let live is a maxim of universal justice,
extending not only to his fellow creatures, but to inferior ones, to whom
his moral obligations are greater, because they are more in his power.
He afflicts himself that he cannot live for ever, though his forefathers
have successively died to make room for him.
He repines at the thought of losing that life, the use of which he so
often perverts: and though he began to exist but yesterday, thinks the
world was made for him, and that he ought to continue to enjoy it for
ever.
He desires to govern others, but, regardless of their dependence upon his
benevolence, is commonly gratified in displaying the power entrusted to
him by a tyrannical abuse of it.
He makes laws, which, in the hands of mercenary lawyers, serve as snares
to unwary poverty--but as shields to crafty wealth.
He acknowledges the importance of educating youth, yet teaches them any
thing but their social duties in the political state in which they live.
He passes his days in questioning the providence of Nature, in ascribing
evil to supernatural causes, in feverish expectation of results contrary
to the necessary harmony of the world.
* * * * *
THE LABOUR OF STUDY.--It is impossible for any man to be a determined
student without endangering his health. Man was made to be active. The
hunter who roams through the forest, or climbs the rocks of the Alps,
is the man who is hardy, and in the most robust health. The sailor who
has been rocked by a thousand storms, and who labours day and night,
is a hardy man, unless dissipation has broken his constitution. Any
man of active habits is likely to enjoy good health, if he does not
too frequently over-exert himself. But the student’s habits are all
unnatural, and by them nature is continually cramped and restrained.
Men err in nothing more than in the estimate which they make of human
labour. The hero of the world is the man that makes a bustle--the man
that makes the road smoke under his chaise-and-four--the man that
raises a dust about him--the man that ravages or devastates empires.
But what is the real labour of this man, compared with that of a silent
sufferer? He lives on his projects: he encounters, perhaps, rough roads,
incommodious inns, bad food, storms and perils; but what are these? His
project, his point, the thing that has laid hold on his heart--glory--a
name--consequence--pleasure--wealth--these render the man callous to the
pains and efforts of the body. I have been in both states, and therefore
understand them; and I know that men form this false estimate. Besides,
there is something in bustle, and stir, and activity, that supports
itself. At one period I preached and read five times on a Sunday, and
rode sixteen miles. But what did it cost me? Nothing! Yet most men would
have looked on, while I was rattling from village to village, with all
the dogs barking at my heels, and would have called me a hero; whereas,
if they were to look at me now, they would call me an idle, lounging
fellow. “He gets into his study (they would say)--he walks from end to
end--he scribbles on a scrap of paper--he throws it away and scribbles
on another--he sits down--scribbles again--walks about!” They cannot see
that here is an exhaustion of the spirit which, at night, will leave
me worn to the extremity of endurance. They cannot see the numberless
efforts of mind which are crossed and stifled, and recoil on the spirits
like the fruitless efforts of a traveller to get firm footing among the
ashes on the steep sides of Mount Etna.--_Rev. John Todd--Student’s
Guide._
* * * * *
NECESSITY OF A STEADFAST CHARACTER.--The man who is perpetually
hesitating which of two things he will do first, will do neither. The
man who resolves, but suffers his resolution to be changed by the first
counter-suggestion of a friend--who fluctuates from opinion to opinion,
from plan to plan--and veers, like a weathercock, to every point of the
compass, with every breath of caprice that blows--can never accomplish
anything great or useful. Instead of being progressive in anything, he
will be at best stationary, and more probably retrograde, in all. It is
only the man who first consults wisely, then resolves firmly, and then
executes his purpose with inflexible perseverance, undismayed by those
petty difficulties which daunt a weaker spirit--that can advance to
eminence in any line. Let us take, by way of illustration, the case of
a student. He commences the study of the dead languages; but presently
a friend comes, and tells him that he is wasting his time, and that,
instead of obsolete words, he had much better employ himself in acquiring
new ideas. He changes his plan, and sets to work at the mathematics.
Then comes another friend, who asks him, with a grave and sapient face,
whether he intends to become a professor in a college; because, if he
does not, he is misemploying his time; and that, for the business of
life, common mathematics is quite enough of mathematical science. He
throws up his Euclid, and addresses himself to some other study, which in
its turn is again relinquished, on some equally wise suggestion: and thus
life is spent in changing his plans. You cannot but perceive the folly
of this course; and the worse effect of it is, the fixing on your mind a
habit of indecision, sufficient of itself to blast the fairest prospects.
No--take your course wisely, but firmly: and having taken it, hold upon
it with heroic resolution; and the Alps and Pyrenees will sink before
you--the whole empire of learning will lie at your feet; while those who
set out with you, but stopped to change their plans, are yet employed in
the very profitable business of changing their plans. Let your motto be
_Perseverance_. Practise upon it, and you will be convinced of its value
by the distinguished eminence to which it will conduct you.--_Wirt’s
Essays._
* * * * *
ILL TEMPER.--Mankind are ignorant enough, both in the mass, about general
interests, and individually, about the things which belong to their
peace; but of all mortals none perhaps are so awfully self-deluded as
the unamiable. They do not, any more than others, sin for the sake of
sinning; but the amount of woe caused by their selfish unconsciousness
is such as may well make their weakness an equivalent for other men’s
gravest crimes. There are great diversities of hiding-places for their
consciences--many mansions in the dim prison of discontent; but it may be
doubted whether, in the hour when all shall be uncovered to the eternal
day, there will be revealed a lower deep than the hell which they have
made. They perhaps are the only order of evil ones who suffer hell
without seeing and knowing that it is hell. But they are under a heavier
curse even than this; they inflict torments, second only to their own,
with an unconsciousness almost worthy of spirits of light. While they
complacently conclude themselves the victims of others, or pronounce
that they are too singular, or too refined, for common appreciation,
they are putting in motion an enginery of torture whose aspect will one
day blast their minds’ sight. The dumb groans of their victims will
sooner or later return upon their ears from the heights of the heaven
to which the sorrows of men daily ascend. The spirit sinks under the
prospect of the retribution of the unamiable; if there be indeed an
eternal record--an impress on some one or other human spirit--of every
chilling frown, of every querulous tone, of every bitter jest, of every
insulting word--of all abuses of that tremendous power which mind has
over mind. The throbbing pulses, the quivering nerves, the wrung hearts,
that surround the unamiable--what “a cloud of witnesses” is here!
and what plea shall avail against them? The terror of innocents who
should know no fear--the vindictive emotions of dependents who dare not
complain--the faintness of heart of life-long companions--the anguish
of those who love--the unholy exultation of those who hate--what an
array of judges is here! and where can an appeal be lodged against their
sentence? Is pride of singularity a rational plea? Is super-refinement,
or circumstance from God, or uncongeniality in man, a sufficient ground
of appeal, when the refinement of one is a grace granted for the luxury
of all, when circumstance is given to be conquered, and uncongeniality
is appointed for discipline? The sensualist has brutified the seraphic
nature with which he was endowed--the depredator has intercepted the
rewards of toil, marred the image of justice, and dimmed the lustre of
faith in men’s minds--the imperial tyrant has invoked a whirlwind to lay
waste, for an hour of God’s eternal year, some region of society. But the
unamiable--the domestic torturer--has heaped wrong on wrong and woe on
woe, through the whole portion of time that was given him, until it would
be rash to say that there are any others more guilty than he. If there be
hope or solace for the domestic torturer, it is that there may have been
tempers about him the opposite of his own. It is matter of humiliating
gratitude that there were some which he could not ruin, and that he was
the medium of discipline by which they were exercised in forbearance, in
divine forgiveness and love. If there be solace in such an occasional
result, let it be made the most of by those who need it; for it is the
only possible alleviation to their remorse. Let them accept it as the
free gift of a mercy which they have insulted, and a long-suffering which
they have defied.--_From Deerbrook, a Tale, by Harriet Martineau._
* * * * *
SLANDER AND VINDICATION.--Vindication in some cases partakes of the same
qualities that Homer ascribes to prayer. Slander, “strong, and sound of
wing, flies through the world, afflicting men;” but Vindication, lame,
wrinkled, and imbecile, for ever seeking its object, and never obtaining
it, follows after, only to make the person in whose behalf it is employed
more completely the scorn of mankind. The charge against him is heard by
thousands, the vindication by few. Wherever Vindication comes, is not the
first thing it tells of the unhappy subject of it, that his character
has been tarnished, his integrity suspected--that base motives and vile
actions have been imputed to him--that he has been scoffed at by some,
reviled by others, and looked at askance by all? Yes; the worst thing I
would wish to my worst enemy is, that his character should be the subject
of vindication. And what is the well-known disposition of mankind in this
particular? All love the scandal. It constitutes a tale that seizes upon
the curiosity of our species; it has something deep and obscure, and
mysterious in it; it has been whispered from man to man, and communicated
by winks, and nods, and shrugs, the shaking of the head, and the speaking
motion of the finger. But Vindication is poor, and dry, and cold, and
repulsive. It rests in detections and distinctions, explanations to be
given to the meaning of a hundred phrases, and the setting right whatever
belongs to the circumstances of time and place. What bystander will bend
himself to the drudgery of thoroughly appreciating it? Add to which, that
all men are endowed with the levelling principle, as with an instinct.
Scandal includes in it, as an element, that change of fortune which is
required by the critic from the writer of an epic poem or a tragedy.
The person respecting whom a scandal is propagated is of sufficient
importance, at least in the eyes of the propagator and the listener, to
be made a subject for censure. He is found, or he is erected into, an
adequate centre of attack; he is first set up as a statue to be gazed
at, that he may afterwards be thrown down and broken to pieces, crumbled
into dust, and made the prey of all the winds of heaven.--_Godwin’s
Mandeville._
* * * * *
The weather is not a safe topic of discourse; your company may be
hippish; nor is health; your associate may be a hypochondriac; nor is
money; you may be suspected as a borrower.--_Zimmerman._
* * * * *
When all is done, human life is at the best but like a froward child,
that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it
falls asleep, and then the care is over.--_Sir W. Temple._
* * * * *
Time runs on, and when youth and beauty vanish, a fine lady who had never
entertained a thought into which an admirer did not enter, finds in
herself a lamentable void.
* * * * *
The poorest of all family goods are indolent females. If a wife knows
nothing of domestic duties beyond the parlour or the boudoir, she is a
dangerous partner in these times of pecuniary uncertainty.
* * * * *
Friendship, love, and piety, ought to be handled with a sort of
mysterious secrecy; they ought to be spoken of only in the rare moments
of perfect confidence--to be mutually understood in silence. Many things
are too delicate to be thought--many more to be spoken.
* * * * *
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